The Body in ART

Sculpting The Human Body
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The majority of artists at one time or another seem to focus their attention on the human body, partly this is due to conventional art training whose foundation is upon the student being able to understand the classical history of art and the role of the human figure within it, and also to develop their own artistic talents by learning to draw and paint the human form. I found this method restrictive, repetitive, and boring, a sort of factory approach to creativity. A (still)life imprisonment of both body and art (factory) worker. As a result I have ever only drawn the human form once, decided it was 15 minute mini masterpiece of creative expression reminiscent of Picasso and Matisse, (sketch below) and then moved on; To throwing paint over people as I recall which was far more interesting.




Even worse is drawing the perennial bowl of fruit. Whenever I was faced with grotesque caricature of the creative process I immediately left the room, and if possible the entire course. The best art courses are not necessarily at the so called prestigous art colleges.

Inside The Creativity Cell

Radical Theory in Art + Economic Crisis

The Art Market, Affluence, and Degradation.
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"Anything we might call radical theory in the arts will have to be solidly constructed in all its social dimensions. It might take something as catastrophic as a collapse in the economic structure of this Society to have any substancial effect on the carreening superstructure of modern American Art."

Ian Burn (1939-1993)




Reading the quote above on radical art theory, I was amazed at its current relevance, and found myself wondering what the author would make of our current global economic crisis; it is also notable that in terms of the relationship between Art and Society that if you change the ending from "Modern Amercian Art" to "Modern American Society" or even just "Modern Society" , it reads well enough the same. DA